1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a suspension for supporting a magnetic head used in a hard disk drive.
2. Discussion of the Background
There are demands on a magnetic head suspension for improved controllability so as to move a magnetic head in a seek direction at high speed and accurately position it on a target track, for improved impact resistance, and for reduced power consumption.
To meet these demands, the mass of the magnetic head suspension needs to be reduced while maintaining the rigidity.
Conventionally, it has been proposed that a central region of a stainless steel plate-shaped member forming a load beam is punched out so as to form a hollow shape and that external edges of the hollow stainless steel plate-shaped member are bent to form a flange to thereby reduce the mass while maintaining the rigidity, for example, as disclosed in Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 58-22827 (1983) (cited reference 1) and U.S. Pat. No. 3,931,641 (cited reference 2).
However, in the magnetic head suspensions described in those cited references, attention is focused only on reduction in the mass of the member forming the load beam and reduction in the mass of the whole magnetic head suspension is not taken into consideration.
Furthermore, a complicated structure is employed, in which the flange makes up for the rigidity reduction due to the hollow structure of the load beam.